Goals of the National Commission on the Voting Rights Act The civil rights community has recognized the need for a substantive record to support the reauthorization of key provisions of the Voting Rights Act which are scheduled to expire in August 2007. To that end, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, in conjunction with other leading civil rights organizations, has created a National Commission on the Voting Rights Act to conduct regional hearings across the country. The National Commission is composed of a 7-member panel of prominent academics, governmental and policy officials and civil rights practitioners. The goal of the National Commission is to write a comprehensive report detailing discrimination in voting since 1982, the last time the Voting Rights Act was reauthorized. This report will be used to educate the public, advocates, and policymakers on this record of discrimination and its relationship to the upcoming reauthorization. Expiring Provisions of the Voting Rights Act The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is generally recognized as one of the seminal pieces of legislation enacted by Congress. Indeed, during the reauthorization hearings in 1982, Congress hailed the Voting Rights Act as “one of the most important civil rights bills passed by Congress” and recognized it as the “most effective tool to protect the right to vote.” The expiring provisions of the Act are some of its most important. These provisions are: (1) the Section 5 “preclearance” provisions which require jurisdictions in all or part of sixteen states to submit voting changes to the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) or the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for preclearance approval before they can be implemented; (2) the Section 203 minority language provisions which require more than 450 counties and townships to provide language assistance to voters with limited-English proficiency; and (3) the examiner and observer provisions which authorize DOJ to appoint an examiner or send observers to any jurisdiction covered by Section 5. The temporary provisions relating to preclearance and examiners and observers were part of the original 1965 enactment and were scheduled to last for 5 years. However, Congress underestimated the tenacious grip that discrimination had on voting and has continued to reauthorize and add to the Voting Rights Act. Section 5 and the examiner provisions were reauthorized in 1970, 1975, and 1982. The minority language provisions were enacted in 1975 and reauthorized in 1982 and 1992. The Need for a Record From its initial passage of the Voting Rights Act, Congress has relied on an extensive record of discrimination in voting to justify the need for the remedies imposed by the expiring provisions. In the original enactment of the Voting Rights Act and in subsequent reauthorizations, Congress has made sure that Voting Rights Act remedies were proportionate to the problems Congress sought to cure. In the Senate Report written during the 1982 Reauthorization, Congress acknowledged that two Supreme Court decisions “expressed the concern that Congress not permanently subject jurisdictions to the unusually stringent remedy of preclearance.” The Supreme Court has cited the Voting Rights Act’s congressional record as the model in recent cases where it struck down civil rights laws after finding that Congress had not established a record of discrimination to support its remedial legislation. These Supreme Court decisions have made clear that reauthorization of the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act must be supported by a record showing discrimination in voting since its last reauthorization in order to survive a constitutional challenge. The National Commission and the Commission Hearings The non-partisan, blue-ribbon National Commission will conduct four to six regional one-day hearings across the country, beginning in March 2005 to gather data and information from citizens and governmental officials about their experiences relating to voting rights issues. The Honorary Chair of the National Commission is former United States Senator Charles Mathias. Bill Lann Lee, former Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, is the Chair. Other Commissioners include former Congressman John Buchanan; leading voting rights scholar Dr. Chandler Davidson; Dolores Huerta, cocreator of the United Farm Workers of America; Elsie Meeks of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; Harvard Law School Professor Charles Ogletree; and former Lieutenant Governor of Colorado, Joe Rogers. Members of the National Commission will be joined by regional guest commissioners at each hearing. The first National Commission hearing was held in Alabama on March 11, 2005 during the 40th Anniversary commemoration of the Selma to Montgomery voting rights march. The second National Commission hearing was held on April 7 in Phoenix, Arizona. Future regional hearings will be held in New York on June 14, and in Minnesota, Florida, California, South Dakota, the Washington, DC area and Mississippi during the summer and fall. Each hearing consists of multiple panels looking at every aspect of discrimination in voting. Invited witnesses are asked to testify about the effects of the expiring provisions on voting within their particular region and the extent to which these provisions have had an impact on allowing minority voters to exercise the franchise free from discrimination and to elect the candidate of their choice. Each hearing will begin with an overview of discrimination in voting in the particular region. Subsequent panels will look closely at the state of voting within the region covered by the hearing, including looking at minority language issues. Each hearing will end with testimony from the public about their individual experiences in exercising the right to vote. The National Commission hearings will also serve to educate local residents about the issues relating to reauthorization. The National Commission Report The purpose of the National Commission report is to set forth the history of racial discrimination in voting since the 1982 Reauthorization. The analysis will be both quantitative and qualitative; utilizing maps to show graphically where there has been voting discrimination in the last twenty-three years. The report will not take any positions concerning whether the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act should be reauthorized or what the reauthorized Act should include. Instead, the purpose of the report is to detail the facts so they can be utilized by the public, policymakers, and advocates during the debate concerning reauthorization. The report will review the various provisions of the Voting Rights Act and racial discrimination in voting and will include sections on Section 5, the minority language provisions, the examiner and observer provisions, Section 2, and voter suppression issues. The information contained in the report will come from several sources: facts compiled from the oral and written record of the National Commission hearings; court opinions in Voting Rights Act cases; the enforcement record of the Department of Justice, including but not limited to the Section 5 objections interposed since 1982, the lawsuits brought and the consent decrees entered into by the Department in voting cases, and the instances in which the Department has sent observers or attorneys to monitor election. Also, the report will detail racial discrimination in voting uncovered by private parties. Dr. Chandler Davidson, professor emeritus of Sociology at Rice University, a preeminent voting rights scholar, and a National Commission member will be the primary drafter of the report, with input from the National Commission, the Lawyers’ Committee, and the national cosponsors of the National Commission. April 2005 Goals | Commissioners | Staff   Southern Regional Hearing Montgomery, Alabama March 11, 2005 Southwest Regional Hearing Phoenix, AZ April 7, 2005 Northeast Regional Hearing New York, New York June 14, 2005 Midwest Regional Hearing Minneapolis, Minnesota July 22, 2005 South Georgia Hearing Americus, Georgia August 2, 2005 Florida Hearing Orlando, Florida 80th National Convention of the National Bar Association August 4, 2005 South Dakota Hearing Rapid City, South Dakota September 9, 2005 Western Regional Hearing Los Angeles, California September 27, 2005 Mid-Atlantic Regional Hearing Washington, DC October 14, 2005 Mississippi Hearing Jackson, Mississippi October 29, 2005